Photographed exclusively for V.F. by Annie Leibovitz. For The Last Jedi: costume design by Michael Kaplan; production design by Rick Heinrichs. For V.F.: set design by Mary Howard. For details, go to VF.com/credits.

In May 2016, Annie Leibovitz visited Sybil Head, a high coastal perch on
Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula, to photograph Mark Hamill and Daisy Ridley
for this month’s Vanity Fair cover story. At the time, the actors were
filming Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The film’s writer-director, Rian
Johnson, had dreamed up a “little Jedi village”—the mysterious place
where Hamill’s grizzled Luke Skywalker has been hiding out all these
years—and a team of Irish craftsmen had dutifully realized Johnson’s
vision, creating a picturesque, convincingly ancient-looking setting
that evokes Skellig Michael, the remote Irish island that had been used
for filming the scene in which Ridley’s Rey met Luke at the conclusion
of the previous installment of the Star Wars saga, The Force Awakens.

The upside of such a dramatic locale is that it is profoundly beautiful.
The downside? A sheer drop into the cold North Atlantic, just steps from
where Leibovitz was operating her camera. To prevent her from
inadvertently tumbling into the drink while she maneuvered around her
subjects, the photographer was outfitted with a climbing harness.

VIDEO: Behind the Scenes of Annie Leibovitz’s The Last Jedi Cover Shoot

Leibovitz was on safer ground at London’s Pinewood Studios, where most
of The Last Jedi’s interior scenes were filmed. There she presided over
an elaborate shoot involving the denizens of Canto Bight, the decadent
casino city of which V.F. offers the first glimpse. In
addition, Leibovitz took portraits of the new Star Wars charactersplayed by Laura Dern and Benicio Del Toro, as well as of such now
familiar figures as Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), Finn (John Boyega), Poe
Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie), and General
Hux (Domhnall Gleeson).

Leibovitz also shot portraits of Hamill as Luke and Carrie Fisher as his
twin sister, General Leia Organa. But it was an eleventh-hour idea to
shoot Hamill and Fisher together. Leibovitz had photographed them for
Rolling Stone in 1980, the era of The Empire Strikes Back; she and V.F.senior photography producer Kathryn MacLeod, who coordinated this
issue’s cover shoot and its corresponding portfolio, thought it would be
nice to get an up-to-date photo of the Star Wars siblings. Sadly, the
photograph is their valedictory portrait; Fisher passed away
last December.

But the mood on set that day was jubilant, playful, and lighthearted:
emblematic of the brother-and-sister dynamic that Hamill and Fisher
enjoyed in real life.